limes were on sale. eight for a dollar. eight. what could i do? i bought eight limes. i wrapped them up tightly in a plastic bag and stuck them in my refrigerator drawer. i can’t decide if i’m waiting for some special occasion, some moment when only limes will do, some cloudburst of fortune when i must have lime after lime after lime after lime. or if i will leave them there until i’ve forgotten my tiny round perfectly greenish yellow limes. until i’ve utterly forgotten that limes were practically free, practically begging me to take them home.

it seems like i’m changing the subject, but we had an ultrasound the other day. i say “we” even though i’m not sure who “we” are. is “we” me and joe? or is “we” me and the baby? or do i say “we” just to make it sound less like i had an ultrasound for appendicitis and more like i’m full and ripe and gestating?

however you add it up, we had the ultrasound. and i saw the baby. my tiny lime-sized wonder, twelve weeks brewed. wiggly arms. wiggly legs. ears, all indistinct and adorable. perhaps a nose, but it was hard to tell. and that long thick cord of a tube that connects me to my tiny lime person.

maybe that’s what makes it hard to eat the limes (all eight of them, snuggled together next to the celery and the granny smiths). i’m feeding my own lime. it seems a strange sort of cannibalism to slice my limes for guacamole or curd. and a strange sort of mothering to keep the limes there in the refrigerator. waiting.